


Five People Who Hurt The Winter Soldier and One Who Ended Him

by Anonymous



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, Consent Play, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, HYDRA Trash Party, Happy Ending, Help, I don't even know how to tag this, M/M, Sweet Trash, Touch-Starved, according to that one anon, ish, only it's more like love-starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 02:48:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4462589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During all the trash party rape, someone has the bright idea to tell Bucky that rape is a sign of love. When they take him despite his objections and pleas, it just means that they really, really love him. It proves that their love is stronger than his protests. Eventually, he comes to equate love with ignoring verbal rejection, no matter how strong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Zola

**Author's Note:**

> how do i tag how do i summary how do i life
> 
> Anyway this is creepy and screwed up (welcome to the trash party) but it has a pretty happy ending, considering. Tag and summary suggestions are welcome, the current summary is crap cannibalized from the prompt.
> 
> Enjoy!

He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know who he is. One of those is more important than the other, but he can’t remember which. 

“Sergeant Barnes,” says a voice, soft and slick and smug. Is that who he is? Sergeant Barnes? Is it even a name? He doesn’t know. “You will be the new fist of Hydra.”

Fist. That’s a word he knows. He tilts his head, looks down at his own fists. He should have two, he thinks, though he’s not sure how he knows. Some part of him is quite certain that there should be two fists there when he looks down. But maybe that part is wrong, because there’s only one. He turns his head to look at the left side of his body, where there isn’t a fist, and finds people in white doing something to part of an arm— his arm. 

They have metal, needles and blades and plates and motors, and they use them to replace what’s left of the arm bit by bit. He watches dispassionately, not sure why they’re doing what they’re doing. After a while, he realizes that there are two fists now, so perhaps he was right before. The second fist is made of metal, though, and it shines too brightly in the glaring lights, blinding him. 

Then, something connects within the new metal arm, and the pain hits.

It’s agony like nothing he’s ever known— nothing he could imagine, having no knowledge as he does— and he writhes and twists and grabs at the throat of one of the people in white. They did this, they ought to share his pain. He feels bone creak and then snap under the grip of the metal fingers.

—Weak metal creaking under soft flesh fingers and then giving way, and then a long, long fall—

“Restrain him and give him the relaxant,” the voice says, and he has the oddest feeling that it isn’t speaking to him. He isn’t even sure that it was before. It’s so hard to concentrate, to remember anything.

A needle stabs into his arm, the flesh one, and all at once he can’t struggle anymore. He can only lie still as his thrashing arms and legs subside and are strapped into place. His head is so heavy, and it falls back of its own accord, so that he can only look at the ceiling. His body feels distant and soft. In the stillness, his mind grows a little clearer, though he still can’t answer either of his first questions. Who is he? Where is he?

He can tell a little more about where he is, now that he’s looking at the ceiling. There are very bright lights hanging from it, but above them there’s a concrete ceiling with bare wires and pipes. 

He’s perusing the ceiling, still, trying to track the lines of wires with his unfocused eyes, when he feels something touch between his legs. It occurs to him for the first time that he is naked— lacking for clothes, which he suddenly realizes he ought to have. 

“So calm now, my soldier. So very still. I wonder, what will you allow me to do, now that I have repaired you?” The voice seems to be attached to the touch between his legs, because it talks at a lilt that keeps time with the strokes. Or perhaps the strokes are keeping time with the lilt. It’s hard to be sure of anything, when he doesn’t even know who he is. “I suppose that is the wrong question. You need not allow anything, for you are only a tool, now. The question is, what do I want to give you?”

Something about that seems wrong. He has the feeling that he has been called many things, not all of them his true name, but none of them has ever been ‘tool.’ 

—Jerk—

The touch between his legs changes, goes lower, and deeper, somehow, and it feels so very strange but he can’t move. It goes on for a while, gets colder and then warmer again, and then it starts to hurt. Something is stretching that doesn’t want to stretch, and he doesn’t like it but he can’t move— unless he can move, maybe he can now. He tries to move and manages to twitch, but the straps are still in place and he can’t make the touch stop.

He’s sure now that he wants it to stop. It hurts more the more he can move, but for all his movement there’s nothing he can do to make it stop. This kind of immobilization is worse, he thinks, because this way he can try and fail.

“Why are you resisting? I hear your kind like this sort of thing. Think of it as a reward for your obedience during the procedure, if you are still thinking at all. I’ll have to take care of that next.”

He feels certain that he has heard words like this before, somewhere, though he can’t remember where.

—Goddamn cocksucker, get your fairy ass outta here—

There’s something larger touching between his legs now, and a body leaning over his. Then the new, larger thing begins to push at him, two, three times, before it sinks in where the touch was before. It hurts more than he thinks should be possible, but it slowly starts to ease once it’s inside. Then it starts to move.

In motion, the thing hurts incessantly, letting up by degrees so small as to be negligible. He thrashes and arches and tries desperately to get away, get it out of him, but he can’t move, and he can’t make it stop.

He can’t make it stop.

“No!” It’s the first sound he has uttered, and he isn’t even sure what it means, but it makes the movement inside him stop, just for a moment, and he breathes a sigh of relief. But the motion hasn’t stopped altogether, it’s just short, shaking jerks as the body above him trembles, and the voice makes a sound—

The voice is laughing, and he can feel it inside him.

“Don’t be silly, I already know how much you crave this. But perhaps you would rather have it from your Captain?”

The word ‘captain’ slams into him like a train wreck, like a bomb going off, like the expansion of ice bursting his heart. 

—Steve—

There is something he knows. It is not his name, or his location, or anything else he had wanted to know, but somehow it is more important than all of them. It is more important than everything. It is Steve, and that means the whole world to him even if he can’t remember who Steve is.

“No!” he screams again, and he thrashes with renewed vigor. He repeats the word over and over as he fights. His arms strain at the straps, and the left one snaps them. He reaches for the throat the voice comes from, trying to cut it off at the source and stop this awful pain. In the brief struggle, the thing slips out of his body, and he is so glad to feel it go, but then his freed left arm jolts suddenly and goes limp. It crashes back to the table with a sound that startles him into silence.

When he is still again, the awful push returns inside him. It doesn’t hurt so much now, but it revolts him with its very existence. He tries to fight again, but his left arm is so very heavy at his side, and it drags him back down to the table. 

“No,” he insists, begging the word to work again as it did at first.

“Yes,” the voice returns, sounding pleased. “I know you need this, even if you can’t remember it right now. You will remember eventually, or maybe I’ll make you remember. You see, I’m the one who knows what you need, and I’m the one who cares enough to give it to you even though you’re just a tool. I’ll keep you better than your Captain ever did. He never knew how to store his weapons.”

Something inside him jerks up at the mention of the Captain, of Steve. All he knows is that Steve is so important, and so, so good, and even though he doesn’t remember, he can’t bear to have the voice speaking ill of Steve.

“No,” he says more firmly, an instruction and not a plea.

“My poor soldier,” says the voice. “Don’t you know you’re defending a dead man?”

Dead? No, it isn’t possible, it can’t be.

—until the end of the line—

He had already left the train, the train had stopped, the train had reached the end of its tracks. The end of the line. Until— but not after.

Steve was gone.

Gone.

He whimpers ‘no’ and weeps silent tears of despair as the body above him thrusts in and out, in and out, for what feels like eternity. ‘No’ doesn’t seem to matter anymore, but he can’t stop saying it.

The endless rhythm begins to soothe him, distance him once again from his body, and he considers that the voice might have been truthful.

Maybe this is an act of care.


	2. Yelena

The Soldier pulls the trigger, watches the bullet travel a hundred yards and then a thousand. Watches it crash through a pane of glass and then through a champagne flute. Watches it disconnect a woman’s brainstem before it exits at the nape of her neck. Watches her fall. He sees the bullet thud into a wall as panicked guests crowd around the fallen woman, but they aren’t important.

Mission complete. He feels a vague satisfaction at his accomplishment and his efficiency.

In the room, under cover of the chaos he created, a beautiful blonde woman slips a thin blade between a man’s ribs. He is dead even as he looks down to investigate the pain in his side, and by then the woman is long gone.

The Soldier watches her slip out unnoticed and experiences an unfamiliar emotion— pride. He is inordinately pleased to be watching an unknown female agent complete a mission not directly connected to himself. It is irrelevant, however. They will rendezvous at the safe house four miles away, and then the handlers will come to collect them. After that, the Soldier will be made to forget all extraneous information, and this feeling will surely go away.

—A little blonde girl, his second-favorite, barely old enough to throw a punch but carrying a half-dozen knives anyway—

The flash is irrelevant, too, so the Soldier ignores it and heads to the safe house. It is a small, dull apartment in a half-abandoned building, but it is adequately stocked for their needs. The Soldier’s mission now is clear: care for and protect the female agent until extraction. She is a more valuable asset than he is.

She is already at the safe house when he arrives— perhaps she had a vehicle. Her exit strategy had been her own business. 

“Nice shot, Yasha,” she says. He recognizes the name for himself, though he does not understand it. He is the Soldier, and he need not be anything else.

—We’ve got to give him some kind of name, they’re just kids—

—Not for long—

He does not know the proper response to a name, or a compliment, so he remains silent. She strips out of her gala attire as he sweeps the safe house for bugs and other weaknesses, completing his secondary mission. When he is sure of her safety, he returns to stand by her. Without her disguise, she is naked, and he is concerned for the vulnerability of her soft skin.

“That was some party, huh,” she says, stepping close to him. “They always get me going. You’re pretty enough, Yasha, want me to give you something good?”

The Soldier tilts his head, confused. He has no requirements at this time. His physical condition is adequate, and his mission is currently in standby, awaiting danger. He cannot think of anything she could give him, because there is nothing that he needs.

“Sex, Yasha. Those wipes really do take out everything, don’t they? Don’t worry, I’ll do all the work.”

—I know you need this, even if you can’t remember it right now—

“No,” he says, and he isn’t sure why. He doesn’t know why he would be made to forget a need, either, unless it’s a need like food that he can do without.

“Oh, hush. I know you want it, and he knows you want it,” she says, coming very close to him. The Soldier jerks at the word ‘he,’ looking around for another agent he had failed to detect, and she laughs at him. Then she puts her hand on his chest, sliding slowly down until it rests on his pants, between his legs. “See, he’s starting to get ready for me.”

“No,” he repeats. She should not be touching him there, some part of him is sure. It feels wrong.

“Why are you being so stubborn, Yasha? You want it, and I want to give it to you!”

—I’m the one who cares enough to give it to you—

“You care about me?” the Soldier asks, tilting his head further. The flash is incongruous and tinted wrong, but he wonders if it might be correct all the same. As he watches, her eyes sharpen and a slow smirk grows on her face. It’s the kind of smile that means she knows something he does not, but he is used to this kind of smile. His handlers use it often.

“Oh, I love you,” she says in a slow, rich tone. “Don’t you see? I’m doing this because I love you.”

The Soldier remains still as she begins to remove his armor and clothing, because she isn’t interfering in his mission. He protests as she pushes him down onto the floor, because lying down will make it harder to protect her, but she puts him down all the same.

Perhaps she trusts his reflexes. He considers that trust could corroborate her claim to love him.

Her hands move down his body again, pressing cruelly into the ruined flesh of his shoulder and any other soft spots they can find. A sharp stab of nails just inside of his hipbones makes him want to twist away, but he remains still. He can do nothing to hurt her, because she is a more valuable asset. Instead he watches as she reaches down between his legs.

As she strokes there, something in his body responds, and it makes him want to twist away even more than her nails had. But he has to protect her, so he cannot protest physically. Can he protest verbally? His unknown word could be for that purpose.

“No,” he says. She ignores it and keeps touching him, smiling in that slow way of hers. “No,” he repeats more firmly, and her hand lets go of him.

The Soldier is relieved for only a moment, but then her body moves over his. She moves down, onto him somehow, and then begins to move up and down, up and down. It makes him feel sick inside and he wants it to stop, but he can’t move to make it stop, because his programming won’t let him.

He can’t make it stop.

“No!” he begs again, louder this time.

“Your mouth says no but your cock says yes,” she laughs. “You see, you may not think you want this, but I know better. I love you, so I know better than you do what you need. And because I love you, I’ll do it for you whether or not you ask for it.”

The Soldier looks up at her, wracked with confusion. He wants to say ‘no' again, but he doesn’t want her to laugh. Or perhaps he does want her to laugh. He’s not sure. The part of him that desperately wants her to stop what she’s doing couldn’t bear her laughter, but the part that must protect her, and the part that felt that strange pride for her before— they’re ready to do anything to please her.

“No,” he pleads, but this time for her benefit. It makes her move faster and he hates it so much, but she smiles sharply like she’s enjoying it, so perhaps it’s worth it. “No,” he says one more time, and is ignored once more.

“See how much I love you?” she asks, moving faster than ever. “I love you enough to ignore all those words you don’t mean.”

He feels like he would evacuate his stomach if he had been fed before the mission. The relief when she finally stops and climbs off of him makes him gasp with its sharpness, though he still wishes he didn’t feel sticky there, between his legs. 

At the same time, though, something inside him feels warm, because someone loves him. She said so, and she proved it, even when he didn’t want her to. She is beautiful and skilled and he is so proud of her, and she loves him.

She loves him.


	3. Rumlow

The Soldier finishes off his last opponent with an efficient twist of the wrist, snapping the man’s neck, and then he allows the body to fall to the ground. Behind him, another half-dozen bodies are lying where they fell. He feels familiar, vague satisfaction as he surveys his work.

Then he turns to the agent accompanying him, who is in the process of gutting the final security guard. The plunge of the knife into her belly makes her scream, but the sound dies as the agent jerks the knife messily upwards into her heart. At last she falls, too, and the agent stands over her, panting and grinning wildly. The Soldier catalogues the messy, inefficient kill, and then he continues to the stairs to finish the mission.

Fifteen guards and two floors later, they have retrieved the necessary information, killed the necessary techs, and destroyed the necessary equipment. 

The agent has also perpetrated a great deal of unnecessary violence. The Soldier thinks that he ought to be perturbed by the show of inefficiency, but instead it brings with it an odd sense of familiarity.

—Sometimes I think you like getting punched—

Perhaps he had once been assigned another agent who had fought more than necessary. If so, that agent must have been part of the extraneous information removed during one of his reprogramming sessions.

Once the mission is complete, the Soldier follows protocol and returns the agent to his safe house, from which he will be recovered. As an asset to be preserved, he will likely be picked up by a tech team at another time. He finds that he feels a pleasant kind of anticipation for the arrival of the tech team— perhaps because of the bullet wedged between two of his plates which restricts movement, but maybe because of the strange feeling that he hasn’t been able to shake since they reprogrammed him after waking him.

Loneliness, he thinks it’s called. He doesn’t understand why he has this feeling, because he is not alone, never alone, the agent in the passenger seat proves that.

He isn’t sure if he thinks the techs will alleviate the feeling by their presence or by reprogramming, and he doesn’t know which he’s hoping for. In any case, the feeling makes him uncomfortable, and he is pleased to know that it will be gone when they come.

The Soldier will just have to wait until then to be able to understand himself again.

He parks in front of the safe house, this time a smallish warehouse abandoned in the industrial district of the city. The inside of it is spare and cold, but there is food and weaponry stored in a floor safe. The Soldier isn’t sure how he knows the combination.

The agent sits down on an old crate and eats while the Soldier keeps guard. To his knowledge, they were not followed, but it is best to be certain. When the agent finishes his meal, he puts the food away, because it is not for the Soldier. 

“Hey, c’mere pretty boy,” the agent says. His tone is familiar, but his words are not. He beckons the Soldier close to him and then makes him kneel at his feet. This position makes it difficult for the Soldier to keep watch, but that is not his official mission, so he allows the change even though he does not understand it. “You were pretty tough out there, but I bet you’re soft underneath.”

—Think of it as a reward—

The Soldier tilts his head. Perhaps this unusual behavior is part of a defunct reward protocol. 

“Come on, let’s get you outta that armor,” the agent croons in a low voice. The Soldier allows this too, unsure of the action’s purpose and programmed to generally follow the orders of Hydra agents.

After a few minutes, the Soldier is naked, though he is largely unconcerned with this. He is somewhat more vulnerable, but he is never truly unarmed because of the metal weapon at his side. The agent manipulates his body until he is bent over the crate formerly used as a chair, and the agent stands behind him. Slowly, at first, the agent begins to touch between his legs. The Soldier doesn’t like it.

—All those words you don’t mean—

“No,” he says fiercely, trying to prove that he does mean it. But the touch doesn’t stop. “No!”

“I heard a rumor,” the agent begins, as the touch slides inside of him. “They say you can’t do anything to hurt us, no matter how much you want to. They say you have to lie down and take anything we want to do, and if you don’t your brain will kill itself trying to stop you.”

It might be true, the Soldier wouldn’t know. He wants the agent to stop touching him, because it hurts and it makes him feel sick. But if he fights, will he really die? He doesn’t want to know, so he tries to stay still. “No,” he repeats.

He might as well have said nothing, for all the good it does him. The agent only quickens the pace of the thrust inside the Soldier, making the stretch bigger and bigger as he goes along. The Soldier trembles with the need to get away and the stronger need to stay where he is. He tries ‘no’ one more time, and once again finds it ignored.

—Don’t you see? I’m doing this because I love you—

And suddenly the Soldier understands. This is why he was assigned the agent and not allowed to be alone. This is why the agent ignores all the Soldier’s pain, and why the word ‘no’ doesn’t seem to work the way he remembers it should.

It’s because the agent loves him.

Even through the pain as the agent pushes something larger into him, the Soldier relishes the knowledge that the agent really does love him. His desire for a tech team passes away. They do not love him, not like this.

No one has ever loved him quite like this— not that he would know. But he thinks he would remember if anyone had ever proved their love to him so roughly. The pain would have lasted, as he is sure the pain of this will last. It is a deep, ferocious, burning agony and it makes him twist and scream and say ‘no’ again and again, but the agent loves him too much to stop because of petty cries.

Even after the agent stops, the Soldier is not lonely anymore. 

How could he be, when he is so loved?


	4. Strike

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” the target says, and the Soldier remembers. He doesn’t know who Barnes is, and he’s not sure that it matters, but he does remember. That name, said a hundred times a hundred different ways.

—His ma, pulling out the middle name when she found him stealing a finger of his dad’s whiskey—

—His little sister, proudly introducing him to the schoolyard bully who was so much bigger than her—

—Saying it himself as he holds out his hand to help a small boy up from the dust—

—Steve—

Something clicks into place in his brain, but the flashes are so fast that he doesn’t know what. It doesn’t matter. He has to finish the mission. He has to take out the target, protect Hydra. The Soldier feels off balance, but he keeps fighting, taking no notice of his bruises or his dislocated right shoulder. The target’s face sparks more flashes, so he strikes at it with his metal fist. 

—until the end of the line—

And then they’re falling.

The next thing the Soldier knows is that he’s dragging the target out of the water, saving his life. The world— the real world, not his memories— comes in flashes after that. His head is hurting and his body is moving on autopilot.

He steals clothes to conceal his armor and battered body.

He catches a ride under a semi truck for miles down a highway, clinging with his metal fingers.

Days pass, weeks maybe. He steals food when the pain in his stomach becomes too annoying.

He sleeps occasionally, or maybe passes out.

He staggers into a safe house and finds inside it a fragmented strike team. Strike teams know what to do with the Soldier.

“May as well, right? Who knows, we might even soil him so bad his precious Captain won’t want him.” The Soldier is too out of it to register the words, but he tries to place the tone of voice. The strike teams used to love him, but he expects them to hate him for failing. He knows what hatred is— being left alone, stunned, frozen. But instead they’re touching him, taking him to another room of the building and staying with him. Maybe they forgive him for his failure.

The Soldier’s awareness comes back as the agents gleefully tear his clothes off. He remembers this, and he needs it to mean something.

“No,” he says. They ignore his words and keep going and this— this is more than he ever dared to hope for. He hates their touch, but they don’t stop no matter what he says. They still love him. He sags a little in relief.

“Aw, gross, his shoulder’s still out.”

“You gonna put it back in?”

“No way, have you heard the sound that makes? Eurgh. You do it.”

“Sissy. Now, hold still,” the agent says. The Soldier does. He doesn’t move even a little, even as he twists and slams the Soldier’s shoulder back into place. 

—Hold still, Buck, I know this is gonna sting but I gotta clean the cut—

Then the strike agents drop the Soldier to his knees and force his mouth open. The one who had fixed his shoulder thrusts into his mouth, and he can’t say ‘no’ in this position, but he can grunt and twist. He has to try to get away, because otherwise this doesn’t mean anything. 

The man at his mouth holds him in place by the hair, and another moves around to his back. His rough touch slides down the Soldier’s spine, between his legs, and inside where it hurts to touch. 

The Soldier can handle pain, if it proves that he is still loved.

A minute later the agent behind him thrusts inside, and he screams despite the obstruction in his mouth. He allows himself to cry, using his tears as a tacit objection that he hopes the agents will understand. They do, probably, because they laugh and thrust harder, until the one in his mouth finishes and another takes his place. 

The Soldier chokes and tries to swallow, grateful for their forgiveness of his failure.

Then there is a crash outside the room and the one in his mouth pulls out. It feels like more than just his body is pulling out of the Soldier’s mouth— it feels like the agent is pulling out his forgiveness as well. “No!” the Soldier cries, desperately wanting it back. He needs to be loved, he needs—

“Stop!” a voice cries, a voice that the Soldier knows. It is the voice that shocked him out of sync with the world, the voice that haunts his flashes. The voice that means everything.

—Steve—

—No, Steve, come on, you know it’d be so much easier if you did me the first time—

—Shut up, jerk, I know what I’m doing—

And then he knows who Steve is, and Steve is so important and Steve loves him. He remembers that Steve loves him, and then all the love these agents can offer isn’t enough. For the first time, he uses all his strength and skill on a Hydra agent, and he snaps the neck of the man behind him as he rolls to his feet. The others are already scrambling away, but they don’t matter, not when Steve loves him.

He walks forward, exhilarated by the thought that he is loved by someone who is everything and so important and so good.

“Steve,” he says, and he smiles for the first time in seventy years.

He can’t wait for Steve to prove his love.


	5. Steve

The Soldier is sitting on the couch, as still and quiet as he can make himself. Steve had been watching a baseball game before, but it’s over now, and Steve looks like he wants to say something. The possibility gives the Soldier hope— flashes come, more all the time, proving that Steve used to love him, but he has yet to prove it in the present. It’s just a matter of time, the Soldier keeps telling himself.

“Bucky?” Steve begins, and the Soldier can’t help but smile. It’s a name for him, like Yasha but better because it’s the one Steve gave him. He turns toward Steve expectantly.

“Steve?” he says, just to say Steve’s name out loud.

“How— how much do you remember?” Steve asks. He sounds oddly, unfamiliarly nervous.

—Steve leaning up and touching their mouths so softly, so hesitantly, expecting rejection—

The Soldier remains silent, trying to understand the question. What he remembers could refer to the flashes, the Soldier reasons. The flashes seem to be memories— perhaps the ones that had once been extraneous and removed to increase efficiency. But that doesn't make sense, because Steve was never extraneous, he was the most important thing in the world.

“I don’t know,” the Soldier says honestly. Steve frowns in response, which makes the Soldier tense. He doesn’t know what’s wrong.

“Do you remember—“ Steve breaks off and moves closer to the Soldier, not touching but leaning over him in a way that seems so promising. He may be about to prove his love for the first time in seventy years, and the Soldier tenses in a totally different way. He won’t enjoy the touch, but even the idea of the love behind it is enough to make him sigh with contentment. “Do you remember how I feel about you?”

Yes, the Soldier thinks. This is it. “You love me,” he says, and knows he’s about to feel the proof of it.

“Yeah, Buck,” says Steve, and his smile is so happy. He leans in closer, closer still, and touches his lips to the corner of the Soldier’s mouth. The Soldier doesn’t understand the touch, but it feels… nice. It feels like no touch the Soldier can remember, except in a few flashes with Steve.

For several long seconds he lets it happen. Then he opens his mouth to ask what’s going on, and Steve’s tongue slides in before he can. It’s weird and kind of slimy, having a second tongue in his mouth, but once he gets past the excess of saliva it actually feels nice, too. As Steve’s tongue pushes deeper, it makes him think of all the times people showed their love by pushing other things into his mouth.

Is that what this is? A variation on that? He hopes so, because it’s his new favorite. It doesn’t hurt at all.

Encouraged by Steve’s firm touch, the Soldier starts to twist and whine, attempting to say ‘no’ with his mouth full. Steve’s mouth feels so good, and he knows it’ll just be better once he’s said ‘no’ and Steve has ignored it. Maybe afterward Steve will do something more, between his legs maybe.

The Soldier’s always hated the touches between his legs, but if Steve can put things in his mouth without causing pain, maybe he can put things between his legs without hurting too. He becomes impatient with anticipation and he tears his mouth away from Steve’s.

“No!” he cries eagerly. He sprawls back, spreads his legs to show exactly what he wants Steve to do. “No, no, no.”

Instead, Steve jerks back like he was hit with a stun stick. The Soldier checks, just to be sure, and finds no electrical burns. Something the Soldier did must have disappointed him, then, to make Steve not want to prove his love anymore. Unless—

Does Steve still—

The Soldier rejects the thought immediately, unable to handle the idea that he might have to live in the world without Steve’s love. There must be something else that caused him to stop, there must be. 

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks in a small voice.

“Of course not, Bucky,” Steve says, and that makes the Soldier relax. “I just don’t want to do this if you don’t want it.” That sentence doesn’t make any sense at all. Of course the Soldier wants it. But before he can explain this, Steve has already gotten up and started to walk away. “I— I have to go out for a while, but I’ll be back soon,” he says as he goes out the door, and the Soldier can only stand and watch him go.

—He knows what hatred is—

But Steve doesn’t hate him, even if he is leaving him alone. The Soldier has a hundred flashes that prove Steve loves him, even though his analysis of the current situation says otherwise.

For the first time, the Soldier considers that some of his programming may be incorrect.

He keeps thinking, trying to understand what went wrong. Steve seemed to think the Soldier was lacking something— he wishes he could remember what it was, so that he could fix himself. If he could do that, he might be able to get Steve to love him again, properly.

Steve had wanted him to ‘want it,’ the Soldier remembers. But he did want it. He wanted Steve’s love more than anything.

—No, Buck, leave me alone! I’m not hurt that bad—

—Dumb punk, at least let me wipe the grit out—

Oh. Suddenly the Soldier understands what he has been missing for weeks now, for years. All those people who had loved him, and he had never loved a single one of them back. Except Steve. Maybe it wasn’t just Steve who had to prove his love— maybe Steve wanted the Soldier to prove that he still loved Steve, even though they’d been apart for so long.

Okay, he thinks. He’s never loved anyone before, but for Steve, he can try.

He starts small. The next day, Steve tells him no, he’s not allowed to put his muddy boots up on the table, and the Soldier just gives him a raised eyebrow and leaves them where they are. He sees a small, fond look on Steve’s face as he turns back to what he was doing, and counts it as a victory.

The day after that, the Soldier ignores Steve’s protest that he shouldn’t stay in the shower for four hours just to see if Stark’s hot water can run out.

He refuses to get dressed for the entirety of the third day, which causes Steve to send him some promising looks even as he protests.

On the fourth day, the Soldier thinks he’s ready for the real thing. He wakes up early and waits in the kitchen, a predator waiting to strike. It’s still dark, but Steve forces himself to get up very, very early in order to be awake for his morning run. Steve eventually trudges in, looking half asleep still and groping for coffee.

—Fancy serum couldn’t make you a morning person? Oughtta get your money back, Stevie—

Once Steve’s had a cup of coffee, he looks more ready to accept the Soldier’s love, and the Soldier pounces. Steve’s hands come up at once, as if he expects it to be an attack, but he puts them back down when he realizes it’s the Soldier. This makes the Soldier… happy, he thinks. That’s the word for this feeling.

“Bucky?” Steve asks. Perhaps he isn’t sure what the Soldier intends yet. He is still tired, after all.

The Soldier just makes his best approximation of a smile and darts in to bite at Steve’s neck. He doesn’t know how to do what Steve did before, the way that didn’t hurt, but he remembers this, and he remembers that he hadn’t minded it, much. Then he reaches a hand down between Steve’s legs and begins to touch, quickly, trying to get Steve to respond the way the Soldier was sometimes made to.

“Bucky, no, what are you—“ Steve starts, but he breaks off when the Soldier bites down sharply.

—Blonde hair and a cruel smirk and bright red nails—

“Oh, hush. I know you want it, and he knows you want it,” the Soldier purrs, stroking harder.

“What? Bucky, cut it out!” Good, that’s good. The Soldier keeps touching, more and faster, trying to show Steve that he loves him enough to ignore all those words he doesn’t mean.

“See how much I love you?” he asks, moving faster than ever.

“Stop,” Steve says firmly. The Soldier pauses, confused, because that didn’t sound like a protest. It sounded like an order, and he knows he’s supposed to obey orders. “Bucky, explain what you’re doing.”

Another order. The Soldier doesn’t understand, he thought it was clear, but he says it anyway. “I’m proving that I love you,” he says.

“Why didn’t you stop when I told you to?” Steve asks, and even though it’s just a question it still feels like an order. Answer me, Steve’s tone says, and Bucky tries harder to understand the question. Why would he stop? He loves Steve. If he stopped, it would mean he didn’t care.

“I know you need this, and I’m the one who cares enough to give it to you. Don’t you see? I’m doing this because I love you.”

Steve gasps sharply, and his eyes look wet, but the Soldier is still afraid to move. He stays in place as Steve comes closer, closer, and finally folds the Soldier in his arms. Steve is so warm, the Soldier wants to relish his touch, but he can’t until he knows what’s going on.

“Did other people do this to you?” Steve says wetly into his neck.

“They loved me too much to stop because of petty cries,” he says pointedly, and then he’s shocked at himself. He doesn’t want to insult Steve, or accuse him of not caring when he has so many flashes that say that he does. It just— slipped out, and he couldn’t stop it. But as he thinks, he wonders if it’s true, if they really did love him more than Steve does.

He sobs at the thought of losing even a little of Steve’s love, because Steve is so, so good, and so important, and everything the Soldier never knew he wanted until he got it back, and he doesn’t want to lose it again.

“I swear to you,” Steve says, pulling himself together, “I will never do anything you don’t want me to.”

And then the Soldier begins to cry in earnest, because his worst fear just came true.


	6. +1: Bucky

The Soldier is lying in his room, pretending to sleep so that Steve will leave him alone. It hurts to be around him now, because he keeps telling Bucky that he loves him. Steve's love is everything he ever wanted, and a few days ago he would have gloried in every declaration, but now that he knows for sure that Steve doesn't love him, the words just hurt to hear. 

The more they hurt, the more the Soldier wants to leave, but he won't, because despite everything he still loves Steve.

The difference is that his love for Steve used to be a beacon of hope. Now it's a chain that keeps him here, so that he has to be reminded over and over again of the way he lost the only thing that was ever really necessary to his soul. 

It makes him want to cry, but he won't, because Steve would heed his tears. 

Sometime past midnight, he hears a quiet, almost silent shush-shush slide of fabric over metal, and he flicks dry eyes over to the grate of the air vent. It would seem that someone is coming to visit him. He considers crushing the edges of the grate with his metal hand so that it can't be opened, but that thought makes him sad. It's then that he realizes he's lonely again. He decides to open the grate himself, anxious to find out who it might be. 

Anyway, it's not like Steve would be able to fit his hulking muscles into the ventilation shaft and still travel as quiet as a cat. 

He pulls the grate from its place, revealing a beautiful girl with dark red hair who smiles to see him invite her in. 

—His favorite—

"Natalia," he says, inclining his head. She extends her arms out of the shaft, braces them on the wall below the vent, and uses them to launch herself out of the duct and into a neat somersault. She lands on her feet like a cat, she always did, and it pleases the Soldier to see it again. 

"Hey, Yasha. Can we talk?" Her voice is different now, less girlish and with no forced sweetness. She has become a woman, and he feels... Proud. 

"Of course," he says, because she's his favorite. 

—The red-haired girl puts her knife through the target's eye on only the second try and he smiles at her—

"Do you know what a safe word is?" Natalia asks him. He cocks his head. He knows both of those words individually, but he has no idea what they might mean together. How can a word be safe? Why would a safe have words?

"No," he answers her honestly. 

"When they were showing you that they loved you, did Hydra ever order you to stop what you were doing?"

—It was an accident, he didn't mean to break fingers, his metal hand is so strong—

—Stand down, Soldier, that's enough!—

"Stand down," he murmurs, and then he answers the question to Natalia. "Yes."

She takes a moment to think as she moves to sit down in his chair. He sits on the edge of the bed, across from her, and racks his mind, first knowledge and then flashes, looking for something to help him understand what she was talking about. After a few seconds, though, he realizes that he probably doesn't need to do it himself, because she's about to explain it to him. Natalia was always good at explanations. Accurate. Succinct. 

"When they told you to stand down, you had to stop immediately, no questions asked, yes?" He nods. "Did you have any words that would make them stop?"

"Why would I?" he asks, tilting his head again. He hadn't wanted them to stop, because he needed to know that they loved him. 

"That's an imbalance. You should have one, even if you don't use it."

"Like a grenade," he says, understanding. Grenades are good for blowing up whatever's happening, and making it stop. He doesn't often like to use them, because they're loud and imprecise, but he always keeps one in his equipment, just in case. 

"Exactly," Natalia says, and she smiles like she's proud of him, which feels backwards but makes the Soldier smile all the same. "Now, I'm going to explain what went wrong with Steve, and you're going to stay in place until I'm done." The Soldier doesn't want to, but he's a little intrigued and a lot determined to make his favorite happy. "Everyone has a safe word to make other people stop. Some people use the word 'red,' and some people choose their own word just for that purpose. For everyone else, the safe word is 'no.' Steve's safe word is 'no,'" she says with emphasis. 

"He wants me to stand down when he says 'no'?" the Soldier asks. He thinks he's beginning to understand, but he has to make sure. It seems like Natalia might be suggesting that Steve loves him after all, but he couldn't bear to draw that conclusion and find it incorrect. He needs her to say it. 

"Yes," she says. "And he stood down when you said 'no,' because he doesn't have full intel. You need to tell him that 'no' isn't your safe word. Then, pick one for yourself and try to start again from there."

"Does he—?" The Soldier isn't sure he can ask the question, but he needs to know the answer. "Does he still—?"

—Lying is what we do, Yasha, but I've never lied to you—

—I trust you—

"He loves you so much, Yasha," says Natalia, and she kisses his forehead gently. Then she slips out through the vent, and he's alone again. He mulls everything over for a long while, hoping against hope that Natalia was right and committing her words to memory. He could give mission reports, even when explanations were beyond his grasp. 

When the Soldier is sure that he's ready, he heads soundlessly out of his room and across the hall to Steve's. In sleep, Steve's body looks vulnerable, and something twinges in the Soldier's heart. 

"Steve," he says quietly. Steve is alert in a matter of moments, combat reflexes serving to wake him as the morning sun does not. Once the Soldier is sure that he has all of Steve's attention, he repeats his conversation with Natalia, word-perfect. 

"Oh, Bucky," Steve murmurs, once he has finished. "Come here, please."

"Why?" the Soldier asks, though he is already obeying. His body reacts to Steve automatically.

"I want you to use your safe word whenever I do anything that hurts you, or anything you don't like, so that I know. I don't want to hurt you, Bucky, but I do want to accept you as you are and love you the way you need to be loved." The Soldier's throat has gone dry, with all the hope welling up inside him. "Have you chosen a word?"

—A man who touches him not to love him but only ever to hurt him in new and creative ways, whose touch makes the Soldier's plates recalibrate and his skin crawl—

"Pierce," answers the Soldier. "Please, Steve, will you please—"

"You want me to prove that I love you?" Steve asks, bringing a hand up gently to touch the Soldier's jaw. "You want me to follow through this time?"

"No," the Soldier breathes, leaning into Steve's hand. 

"Then what—" Steve begins, and then he takes a deep breath, leaning closer and resting his forehead on the Soldier's metal shoulder for a moment. "Right, sorry. I'm still going to have to get used to this, but I'll do my best, I promise."

The Soldier stays still except for the fine tremors that rack his body with each pulse of anticipation that goes through him. Steve is about to touch him, to prove that he loves him, and it might not even hurt at all. This is everything he ever needed and more, and all it took was a few words. He's going to owe Natalia his very life for what she has done for him. 

He chose his favorite well, he thinks. 

After what feels like a small eternity, Steve's mouth touches his in the way they had before, softly and carefully. It's nice. The feeling of Steve's tongue in his mouth is still strange, but he gets used to it as before, and even likes it after a while. He wants Steve to do more, though, so he finishes the reenactment by pulling away and crying 'no.'

There is an anxious heartbeat where he is sure Steve will reel back again, sure that this is about to end. 

Then Steve dives back in and keeps touching and licking with his mouth, and he breathes a sigh of relief. 

After a while Steve pushes him down onto the bed, and that's new, too. He has been loved on floors and tables and in the chair for reprogramming, but no one has ever loved him in a place meant for sleeping. Steve doesn't seem tired, though, just the opposite. Steve's wakefulness is electric and catching. 

He doesn't know what Steve is planning, but he doesn't want to, either. He trusts Steve in a way he has never trusted anyone before. So when hands start to pull his clothes off and touch the skin underneath, he only struggles enough to protest, not to really get away. He could, he's not restrained, but he doesn't want to discourage Steve from loving him. 

But then he considers, and a horrible thought comes to him. What if Steve will only love him when he is soft, and pliant? What if his love is conditional?

The thought makes him want to cry, so he thrashes and screams and fights to get away.

He tries with all his strength, but Steve's serum-enhanced body is stronger. Steve quickly pins him on his back, each limb matched to one of his and holding him down. Only his left arm can move at all, but it doesn't have enough leverage to free itself, let alone him. The hold on him is tight and confining and he can barely move to relax his muscles, and it's perfect. Steve loves him, loves him too much to let him go. 

Then Steve lets go, and he wants to cry again but he doesn't. He can make himself trust Steve, he knows he can, so he fights instead. He surges up—

Right into Steve's arms. Steve catches him around the chest and holds him tight enough to cut off his breathing, and then twists both his arms so his hands are between his shoulder blades. It seems Steve had used the pause to fetch handcuffs—ordinary, but sharp enough to cut into his flesh wrist if he struggles hard— which snap onto his wrists with satisfying firmness. He could easily unbend his arms, he knows, but then Steve shoves him back so that he's lying on the bed, his back forced into an arch over his hands. The position strains his joints just enough that he knows he's trapped. It doesn't hurt. 

"No, no, stop," he begs. It's a word he's never used to protest before, but he doesn't question the impulse. He needs this love more, so he needs to fight harder to believe it. Steve sits up a little, still holding his legs down and bracing one hand on his chest to keep him in place. He watches Steve take one more deep, deep breath. 

"No, I'm not going to stop," says Steve, leaning down to whisper, close and intimate, "because I love you."

Then Steve's free hand comes down between his legs, and he cries 'no' reflexively, but the touch doesn't feel painful like it usually does, just a little wrong the way it always does. After a few moments he starts to whimper 'no' again and again as the touch makes him respond. This, too, is not painful— rather, it is nice, pleasant, the way the touch of their mouths had been. He finds that he likes it. 

"No!" he yells, a cry of simple uncertainty. He has never liked anyone's love before, no matter how much he craved it. Perhaps this, too, is because of how he loves Steve. 

Steve's touch moves lower softly, touching what does not like to be touched and stretching what does not like to be stretched, but wetly. Even this does not hurt, when Steve does it, not even when Steve pushes inside him and begins to move in and out. The thrusts are quick and forceful but somehow still tender and they feel not just pleasant, but good. Steve's love feels good. 

He can't get away, and for the first time, no part of him can, and no part of him wants to. 

This is a different level of love, he thinks, where Steve gives it to him and he likes it, whether he wants to or not. Only Steve could be so good as to invent a whole new way to love him. 

He almost doesn't want Steve to finish, but eventually he does. He doesn't withdraw immediately, though. Instead, Steve touches him until he finishes too, and until this moment he hadn't remembered that he could. Then he and Steve slump down together, and he frees his own hands to wrap them around Steve. He wants to be able to reciprocate the wonderful, powerful love that Steve has shown him, just a little. 

Steve loves him, and that's so important and so, so good— and now, he knows it as an absolute certainty. 

"Thank you," Bucky murmurs.


End file.
